“readers will find in Prisoners, Lovers, & Spies a thought-provoking history of SW and secret communications…. In an epilogue, Macrakis blasts the CIA for its de- classification policies… Her personal views aside, Prisoners, Lovers, & Spies is a valuable contribution to the literature.” [bold added !!!]

“For every person who experimented with secret inks… at last we have a splendidly written history of how these inks were developed and the role they played in history. As a bonus, in the Appendix is a useful guide to secret inks and ‘kitchen chemistry experiments,’ where the reader will find the secret formulas and instructions needed to make your messages disappear… and appear again! I enthusiastically recommend this book!”–H. Keith Melton, coauthor (with Robert Wallace) of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda

“Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies is a thorough and interesting historical look at the origin and evolution of ‘secret’ or ‘invisible’ writing. The book is written in a very reader friendly, accessible style, making it suitable for a broad audience. The brief historical vignettes of individuals such as Kurt Frederick Ludwig and Madame Maria de Victorica and their use of invisible ink are light, breezy, and easily digested.”–Allen Hornblum, author of Acres of Skin and The Invisible Harry Gold

“Kristie Macrakis here reveals long-hidden secrets of invisible ink, microdots, and other ways spies, lovers, generals, businessmen, and ordinary folk have concealed messages they didn’t want others to read. No one else has ever done this so well and so fully. A tour de force!”–David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers

“Kristie Macrakis’s fascinating, pathbreaking book shows how secret writing was developed by both lovers and spies (an exotic combination in the history of covert communication). Though nowadays widely regarded as child’s play, in the world wars and Cold War of the twentieth century, secret writing remained, as Macrakis vividly demonstrates, a deeply serious business.”–Christopher Andrew, Cambridge University

Kristie Macrakis, an author, historian and professor, was born and raised in Boston, MA. After completing her Ph.D in the history of science at Harvard University, she spent a post-doctoral year in newly unified Berlin, Germany. She is a professor in the school of history, technology and society at Georgia Tech in Atlanta where she teaches courses on history of science, Nazi Germany and the history of espionage...